Racism illustrated, followed by overreaction illustrated. America the sitcom.

Ah, the Obama rodeo clown controversy. At the Missouri State Fair a rodeo clown donned an Obama mask, helpfully imaged above, and mocked President Obama. The full video, such as it is, can be viewed here. Reaction was swift, the clown in question was banned for life from performing at the Missouri State Fair. It went downhill from there. Conservatives defended the clown’s shtick as freedom of speech and art. The NAACP called the clown’s antics a hate crime. Will it bring down the republic? Unlikely. Can we learn anything from it? Possibly. Can we be amused or at least face palmed about it? One can only hope.

OK, a few points here. Some people have claimed this was just satire and poking fun and it wasn’t racist. There’s a word for people like this. The word is racist. I know, difficult to understand, but one can be a racist and not think they are a racist. OK, it’s racist (and the whole crowd’s reaction was racist) for several reasons. First of all. look at the mask. the lips and teeth are wildly exaggerated. Does Obama have large lips and teeth? No. Why would the lips and teeth be exaggerated? Because those are nigger characteristics.

Moving right along, he made a joke where he didn’t out and out say that Obama was a nigger in the president’s clothes, but he implied it. And the crowd got the “joke.” (For my non racist readers, that’s a classic racists joke. “That’s not a cop, that’s a nigger in a cop suit.” etc.) He also made fun of Obama’s “nigger lips.” Of course Obama doesn’t have prominent lips, in any event nigger lip jokes are also a common trope among racists. The “clown” also references running trampling Obama with a bull, I’m not sure why that was funny, but the crowd laughed.

Lastly, satire is funny. poking fun at people is funny. There was nothing funny or humorous or good matured about the clown’s act, it was just some lowbrow and racist insults. There are plenty of ways the clown could have spoofed Obama and been good-natured about it, he chose the low road. And people complained, because a State Fair is a publicly funded celebration of America and American values, and they didn’t this it was an appropriate venue to crudely mock the president. And it wasn’t, there are plenty of times and places where insulting the president is acceptable, a publicly funded celebration of American values isn’t one of them.

Then there’s people screaming “freedom of speech” and “artistic impression.” I am really tired of those types of people because they invariably don’t have a clue what rights are. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can say whatever you please wherever you please without consequence. Try telling your boss he’s an asshat and see how well freedom of speech protects your job. The clown chose to publicly mock and insult the president while he was on the state’s payroll, if it didn’t occur to him that might not be wise, he’s an idiot. There are all sorts of things a rodeo clown could say that would get him or her fired, how could he not know that?

That all being said, yes, some of the reaction on the part of the State Fair officials and the left as well was over the top. I don’t think the guy should have been fired for one thing, that’s just stupid. A suspension and a warning would have been fine, no need to make a martyr out of the guy. And both clowns in the act should have been corrected, though the one that was fired was certainly the major protagonist. Some have even called for the Secret Service and the DOJ to investigate the act as a “hate crime.” Oh please, spare me. We already have a hugeproblem in this country with authorities insanely over-reacting to threats, people just make their own cause look silly when they over-react. Oh well, political theatre has always been a tradition in the country, it’s just moved into theatre of the absurd these days.

Lastly, and the only real point to this post, tens of millions of Americans don’t really understand what racism is. Worse, they hold racist attitudes but are in complete denial about them. Like the Americans who don’t think there was anything racist about this clown’s act. Or the tens of millions of Americans who think whites are now a discriminated against minority in the USA. Anyone who thinks that doesn’t even begin to understand the barriers faced by non-whites in this country. It’s as absurd as the “War on Christianity.” Right. In Egypt mobs are burning Christian churches and homes and businesses as I type, when was the last time a mob burned a church in the US? Fortunately at least the USA is doing something about the war on Christianity in Egypt. They are calling for the people waging this war to be put back in power! As my Egyptian friend puts it, now even the Christians in Egypt hate America.

That’s a topic for another post. I hope everyone had a great weekend.

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. it’s not being used for profit and is arguably an historical image. I have no clue as to who the image copyright belongs to. And yes, sometimes now one of the links in my posts are fun weird links not really related to the post. Enjoy!)

8 Responses

Have the Secret Service investigate this guy for a hate crime??? My Dad hated FDR and during WWII from time to time would send a telegram to the White House refering the FDR as Public Enemy No 1. Never did any federal agent come and ask my Dad why he hated FDR and did he plan to kill him. Obama should be impeached for failing to prosecute Bush for the illegal war of aggression on Iraq that Bush waged. Impeached for failing to close Gitmo. I voted for Obama hoping for a change of policy from Bush and I wind up with a President that has used that idiotic Espionage Act of 1917 more times than any president against whistleblowers. The NSA violates the law thousands of times and no one is charged with a crime, but PFC Manning gets stomped on. The judge the first day of his trial should have said “the Army failed to bring him to trial within 120 days as per the manual for courts martial, Case Dismissed. And why on earth was an Army soldier held in a Marine Corp Brig?
BTW I’m a combat vet of the Vietnam War, Tet 68, Battle for Hue, Relief of Khe Sahn, and the April 1968 operation into NVA supply areas of the A Shau valley, as a crewchief/door gunner with the 1st Air Cav. As long as I’m on a rant, why in hell was France allowed to have Indochina back after WWII? If they’d not got Indochina back there would not have been a Vietnam War. How communist was Ho Chi Minh? He fought with Chiang Kai-shek in WWII…The Brits helped the French over throw Ho’s Independent Vietnam in 1946 by using rearmed Japanese troops that were still in Indochina. The Brits wanted France to have Indochina back to bolster their wish to keep India as a colony. Lost India anyway in 1947, but left us with the French Indochina mess. Ho’s forces got downed US pilots to China to fly again. Vichey French gave our downed flyers to the Japanese who executed our pilots. Boy are we ever good at making sows ears out of silk purses.

If you don’t know the meaning of a word, you probably should avoid using it. I watched the video, there was no satire, just a series of crude racist jokes and insinuations. I know the definition of the word satire, unlike you, which makes me qualified to say that this wasn’t satire.

so what.
enlightened intellectuals must stop telling us what is satire as against racism, democracy as against demagogy.
less endowed ethnic groups have set in motion an attempt to wipe off democracy. and, until know, the attempt seems to be succesful

Banning someone from a public work (a fair ground) without a trial.. a trial that would have certainly resulted in a 1st amendment dismissal is extrajudicial BS.
But that IS the problem today.. jurisprudence is dead.. with a big help by Mr. Obama who can spy on anyone without a warrant..
The mask should have been placed on the rodeo horses ass, but then that would have insulted the horse!

Yes, the over reaction was ridiculous. Pretty sure the state can ban whatever individual they please from a State Fairground though, there are no constitutional issues here. No one is claiming he had no right to say what he did, you can say almost any stupid thing you want in this country. People have lost their jobs over much more minor things said.